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My Top 10 TV/Movie Weddings

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Doesn’t this one make everyone’s list?

I’m sorry guys. I tried not to do it, but you guys are getting some wedding content this week.

I’m getting married in six days, give me a break! We’ll get back to regularly scheduled programming when I get back from sunny Mexico. In the mean time, we’ll have some guest posts, some goofy wedding posts, and some normal Kristin-content mixed in just for spice.

But today, it’s all about goofy weddings. About six weeks ago, after I went to see The Five-Year Engagement, and I came home slightly hysterical about the impromptu movie wedding, Drew gently suggested that perhaps I shouldn’t watch any more movie or TV weddings.

Now, I really love romantic comedies. And sit-coms. I have to admit it: I just do. And at this stage, I’m starting to go into withdrawal. So here are my ten fictional weddings, in no particular order: some of them I learned from, some of them I genuinely enjoyed, and some are just plain funny. So read, enjoy, and watch them for me so I can live vicariously through you.

1. Friends: Ross and Emily
This is one of those ultimate learning-experience TV weddings. First, the wedding hall is torn down. Then the bride briefly calls off the wedding. Then, once everything is all hugs and puppies again, the groom’s ex-girlfriend shoes up, and he says the wrong name in the ceremony.

Thanks to this episode, Drew knows that his job is pretty much just to show up and say the right name. But he also gets to hold my hand through any disasters and try to understand that little things like music and garland are more important to me than they might be to him.

And I’ve learned that I can roll with things, and that sometimes tiny alterations will make things more beautiful.

Um… oops?

2. Friends: Chandler andMonica
This wedding somewhat balances out Ross’s failed one. Yes, there are disasters, yes, the officiant shows up late, yes, everyone thinks the bride is pregnant, but otherwise, it goes off without a hitch.

Plus, the entire seventh season of Friends is all about Monica’s crazy wedding antics, which have made me feel much better over the last year.

3. How I Met Your Mother: Marshall and LilyAnother terrible sitcom wedding! (Are you starting to notice a pattern here?) No flowers, the musician giving birth, no photos, no veil, the groom shaves his head, and an ex is present yet again.

But Marshall and Lily love each other enough to have a pre-wedding before their wedding, one with all of the things they wanted originally and without all those things that don’t matter.

Lily is super-drunk.

4. Father of the Bride (1991)One of my all-time favorite wedding movies.Everything is beautiful and goes smoothly, and I can’t count the number of times in the last year that I’ve wished I had a Franck to help me plan my wedding.

They almost look friendly, don’t they?

5. My Best Friend’s WeddingThis is another of my longtime favorite wedding movies. Watching Julia Roberts try to hate the sickeningly sweet Cameron Diaz and to destroy her posh wedding still fills my heart with joy. And, in the end, poor Julia gives up the ghost and lets her best friend marry the woman of his dreams.

6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Xander and AnyaThis is one of those big-scary lesson weddings, one that shows just how mean people can be, and how sometimes the demons we bring on ourselves are far worse than the ones that come from hell dimensions.

Even if I weren’t banned from watching wedding episodes, I would not watch this one, because watching Xander leave Anya just about breaks my heart.

7. My Big Fat GreekWedding
Ah, the classic blending of two wildly disparate families to create something new and special. This one’s all about learning to love yourself and your origins, too, and to find that one person who makes you feel like the best version of yourself you can be.

8. Little Women (1994 film version): Meg and John BrookeI’ve always loved this telling of Little Women, and while I always thought Meg’s quiet love story with John Brookewas a little ho-hum, but it’s grown on me over the years. Plus, I love the cute, lush, rustic garden setting, and I’d love to have people wearing flower-crowns dance around us in a circle and sing “For the Beauty of the Earth.”

The bonnets would be optional, of course.

9. Mad About You: Paul and JamieI haven’t watched this one in ages, but I remember fondly Jamie eating chocolate to drown her sorrows and worrying that she wouldn’t fit into her dress. This is another couple who couldn’t take the stress of their planned wedding, and sneaked off to have a private one.

That’s sweet, and all, but I think it’s more a reminder that the wedding is about two people, and not about all the guests and glamour, and you shouldn’t have to avoid your friends and family to remember that.

10. Sex and the City: Charlotte and Harry (as compared to Charlotte and Trey)Another wedding gone awry! Perhaps I should’ve just written a post about all the things that can go wrong in a wedding if you live in a television show. The nice moment here, though, is when Carrie points out to a distraught Charlotte that a perfect wedding does not equal a perfect marriage. While Charlotte’s earlier wedding was perfect (aside from a few sexual-function issues), the marriage was a disaster. And, as we see, despite the wedding mishaps, Charlotte’s marriage to Harry is a great one.

I do love her dress.

Bonus #11. HeartbreakersThis movie is so full of bizarre, conned weddings, it’s hard to overlook the love stories. I do love Jennifer Love Hewitt’s beach wedding, though, and the song “Oh My Love” from their wedding night will play a much happier part in my wedding than it did in theirs.

My immediate thought was Father of the Bride, so yes on that. And I also like Charlotte and Harry’s wedding. As for My Best Friend’s Wedding, I thought those lilac satin dresses were the shit when that movie came out!